Felix Frankfurter

“ The employment instead, by the trial judge and the Supreme Court of Errors, of a standard infected by the inclusion of references to probable reliability resulted in a constitutionally invalid conviction, pursuant to which Rogers is now detained 'in violation of the Constitution.' [2] A defendant has the right to be tried according to the substantive and procedural due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. This means that a vital confession, such as is involved in this case, may go to the jury only if it is subjected to screening in accordance with correct constitutional standards. ”

“ To require a federal judge exercising habeas corpus jurisdiction to attempt to combine within himself the proper functions of judge and jury in a state trial-to ask him to approximate the sympathies of the defendant's peers or to make the rulings which the state trial judge might make, within the exercise of his discretion concerning the admission of evidence at the borderline of constitutional permissibility-is potentially to prejudice state defendants claiming federal rights and to pre-empt functions that belong to state machinery in the administration of state criminal law. ”

“ The motive of a person in confessing is of no importance provided the particular confession does not result from threats, fear or promises made by persons in actual or seeming authority. The object of evidence is to get at the truth, and a trick or device which has no tendency to produce a confession except one in accordance with the truth does not render the confession inadmissible * * *. ”

“ Nor, in a case where specific findings are made concerning the allegedly coercive circumstances, can those findings be fairly looked to for the 'facts,' since findings of fact may often be (to what extent, in a particular case, cannot be known) influenced by what the finder is looking for. Historical facts 'found' in the perspective framed by an erroneous legal standard cannot plausibly be expected to furnish the basis for correct conclusions if and merely because a correct standard is later applied to them. ”

“ This is all that we may look to, in the absence of detailed state-court findings of historical fact, because this Court cannot sit as a trial tribunal to hear and assess the credibility of witnesses. Of course, so-called facts and their constitutional significance may be so blended that they cannot be severed in consideration. ”

“ As a matter of abstract logic it is arguable that Rogers may not have been deprived of a constitutional right, nor held in custody in violation of the Constitution, within 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (c) (3) , 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241 (c) (3) , solely because the Connecticut trial court applied an impermissible constitutional standard in admitting his confession-that Rogers was not so deprived, or so held, unless 'in fact' his confession was coerced, a 'fact' to be ascertained from the state record on direct review here, or de novo by a federal district judge in habeas corpus proceedings. ”

“ A state defendant should have the opportunity to have all issues which may be determinative of his guilt tried by a state judge or a state jury under appropriate state procedures which conform to the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. ”

“ And this is not a permissible standard under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The attention of the trial judge should have been focused, for purposes of the Federal Constitution, on the question whether the behavior of the State's law enforcement officials was such as to overbear petitioner's will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined-a question to be answered with complete disregard of whether or not petitioner in fact spoke the truth. ”

“ Chief Eagan also denied that he had framed his remarks about bringing petitioner's wife in for questioning as a threat or that he had suggested that petitioner would be 'less than a man,' etc.
On the basis of the evidence summarized, the trial judge concluded that the confessions were voluntary and allowed them to go to the jury for consideration of the weight to be given them under all the circumstances that led to them. Conviction of petitioner for murder followed. ”